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Archives for 2010

Is Twitter the New Rolodex?

 

Rolodex 1d

Recently I realized just how Twitterized I’ve become.  I saw a blog I liked (One Louder, by Microsoft “Employee Evangelist” Heather Hamilton) and felt rather desperate when I didn’t find a Twitter bird on the site.  Thinking it through, I found that Twitter (via Tweetdeck) is now the way I “file” people/websites I want to keep in view.

I still have a very nice set of categorized pages that gather RSS feeds–and almost every website/blog on earth offers RSS, so no problem there.  But in truth I don’t look at those pages very often any more.  I use them like a library, visiting when I want to browse or find something in particular.  So if I were to put One Louder on a feed page, I would probably forget all about it until I went there to look for something else.

On the other hand, when someone I follow tweets about a new post on their blog, the tweet appears in the appropriate column on my deck display, and I can tell pretty fast whether I want to look at it or not.  If I do, the post is a click away.  And that’s just one of the many ways Twitter can be useful even if you don’t ever tweet.

I didn’t invent the Twitter/Rolodex connection, of course.  In fact, a Fast Company blog post last year gave a nice example of how Twitter works as a a “living Rolodex that responds to you.”  And around the same time, another blogger gave a good example of how Twitter has become “the new rolodex for every journalist.“

If you think back to the original Rolodex, its great virtues were simplicity (each card holds the indispensable information, with no frills) and consistency (every card has the same information arranged in the same way).  Of course you could also  scribble on the back of them, but that’s a matter of taste . . .

Twitter offers some of the same attractions.  Everybody gets the same number of characters, so it’s a level playing field–and you can absolutely count on tweets being short!  Few things in life are so certain.

At the same time, following a resource on Twitter adds a dimension of information by surfacing what they notice and choose to tweet.  It’s amazing what you can figure out about an individual or company by just observing their Twitterstream for a while!  And with the advent of Twitter lists and Twitter managers, you can now organize your Twitter Rolodex in many different configurations—for example, put the boring people all on one list and filter them out.  They are still in your “file,” but you don’t have to see what they tweet.

Heather Hamilton wrote a post about why she is reluctant to engage Twitter, and I think she probably speaks for a lot of people who have the same concerns.  But the potential usefulness of Twitter doesn’t really become apparent until you actually get into it, mess around with different approaches, and  stick with it for a while.  That process lets you figure out what role—if any–it should play in your work/life.

 

(Many thanks to Hannes Grobe for the original photograph of this cultural icon.  It’s been reworked a bit here.)

Are You Talking to the Right People about Your Brand Online?

ladderEvery company is trying to jump on the social media marketing bandwagon having finally realized that if your brand isn’t a topic of conversation on the social Web, then you’re missing a big opportunity to build brand awareness, recognition, purchases, and loyalty.  But are you talking to the right people about your brand online?  That’s the truly important question that you need to constantly monitor and re-evaluate to ensure your social media efforts aren’t for naught.

One of the first steps I always tell my social media marketing clients who are just getting started on the social Web is to take some time finding your best customers and prospects online.  Where are they already spending time on the social Web?  Once you find them, join the conversation and start hanging out with them just as you would if you were trying to build relationships and network in person.  Once you get on their radar screens and develop relationships with them, you can start pulling them over to your branded destination for more conversations.  They won’t seek you out or follow you until they know you and know what kind of value you bring to the online conversation.

There is a second part to finding people to talk to and build relationships with on the social Web that is often overlooked.  You also need to consider the roles each person that you connect with online plays in the larger online community.  Their roles should affect how you communicate with them.  I like the breakdown of social media personalities from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s Groundswell to help understand online behaviors and how they can impact your communications strategy.  In their book, they identify the Social Technographics Ladder, which is broken down into six categories of people based on how they participate on the social Web as follows:

  1. Inactives: At the bottom of the ladder are inactives who do not participate on the social Web at all, meaning they don’t create or consume content of any kind.
  2. Spectators: Spectators consume content.  They read blogs, watch shared videos, listen to podcasts, and so on, but they don’t participate in an active way.  In other words, they are passive social Web participants.
  3. Joiners: Joiners have profiles on social networking sites but aren’t particularly active in using those profiles once they create them.
  4. Collectors: Collectors participate on the social Web by consuming content and adding modest additions to content created by other people.  For example, they read blog content by subscribing to RSS feeds and they participate in online polls and voting.
  5. Critics: Critics consume and create, but they do so in a reactionary way.  In other words, they comment on other people’s blogs, contribute to forums, edit wiki articles, and post reviews of services, all of which are fairly reactionary methods of participation.
  6. Creators: Creators are at the top of the social Web participation ladder.  They are the true content creators who write their own blogs, create their own Web sites, publish their own online videos, create podcasts, and so on.

When you look at the six behavioral personalities defined above, you can better understand how the roles people play online makes them more receptive to different types of messaging.  For example, Critics and Creators are the most powerful online influencers.  They are the most vocal online audience and they can help you spread your messages.  The information and conversation that you engage them with should be very different than your interactions with Spectators or Joiners.

People from every group could be customers and can learn about your brand from the social Web (even Inactives could indirectly hear about your brand offline from someone who heard about it via the social Web).  However, just as you modify your messages when you network and build relationships with people in person, you must do the same on the social Web.  In other words, do your research and know who the influencers are.  Only then can you effectively interact with them and other groups on the social Web.

Image: Flickr

A Handy Guide to Content Marketing. Plus—Employer Branding in a Nutshell

800px-Combustor_with_guide_vanes 2.svg

I hadn’t thought that much about the definition of “content marketing” until I visited the Junta42 site for another reason, and realized that I wasn’t sure exactly how they were using the term.  While scouting around for clues, I found an absolute gem buried in one of the many (many) layers and offshoots of the site.

Junta42 is a content-marketing matchmaker (projects-to-vendors), and their site is super-rich in content about content.  But there is such a thing as too much abundance!  Luckily, though, I did discover the Content Marketing Playbook and recommend it very highly.  Subtitled “42 Ways to Connect with Customers,” this nifty ebook has a page for every imaginable kind of content, from white papers to webinars.  And!  Each page has a brief case study that links right to a relevant example of the content type.  So if you’re not completely clear on what an “Online Media Site” might be (Item 31), you can click right over to an example at Proctor & Gamble’s HomeMadeSimple.com.

For every content type there’s a handy cheat sheet, explaining what it is, who/what it’s good for, who/what it’s not good for–and ending with three quick tips.  A cruise through this book provides a great refresher on content forms that are already familiar (blogging, newsletters, podcasts, etc.) and should also offer every reader at least a few new ideas.  Get up to speed on magalogs, wikis, widgets, and more.

Suggestions:  (1) Open/download the PDF version.  You can page through the book via the website, but there’s a lot of visual distraction. (2) While visiting Junta42, bookmark their guide to the “Top 42”  blogs about content marketing.  (The list is also an example of Playbook Item 11, the “Industry Ranking System.”)

Speaking of cheat sheets—there is an exceptionally concise summary of employer branding on the website of Singapore-based Human Resources magazine.  It’s smart, short, simple, and clear.  Here’s a highlight:

Generally, companies can focus on four types of employer branding messages:

Focus on offers: “At our company, you get more than what you get elsewhere. (E.g. benefits, culture, and career opportunities)”

Focus on personality: “You can find people who are similar to you in our company.”

Focus on values: “Values are important to us. If you share the same values, you can live according to what’s important to you here.”

Focus on tasks: “At our company, you will get the chance to do what excites you and you will love it here.”

This article provides a nice refresher for those already engaged with employer branding, and a useful starting point for those new to the topic.

All in all–two free reads that offer a lot of value.

 

(Thanks to Arnero for the . . . illustration.  Wondering what it is?  Me too.  By title, a “Combustor with guide vanes.”  No idea what that means, but it’s really cool to look at!)

 

Potato Chips and Flickr — A Happy New Social Media Marketing Tactic

Lays_Happiness_exhibitFlickr is the most popular online photo sharing site, but it has yet to be fully leveraged for social media marketing.  The reason lies in part due to the restrictions of use that the site has in place to ensure that everyone who spends time there is uploading valid images that add to the community rather than detract from it.  PepsiCo’s snack food division, Frito-Lay, is trying to find the secret to marketing via Flickr with its new “The Happiness Exhibit” campaign.  Check out the Web site here and the Flickr group here.

Consumers are being asked to upload photos of themselves, friends and family to Flickr (or to Flickr from Facebook) while enjoying happy moments in life.  Some of the images will appear in People magazine and on Lay’s product packages later this year.  The campaign integrates well with Lay’s “Happiness is Simple” initiative that has played out in advertising and marketing over the past year.  The new digital component of the initiative on Flickr will be promoted with ads on Hulu, iVillage, Yahoo! and YouTube as well as on some Lay’s product packages.

This particular campaign has a big budget push behind it, and partnerships have been made between Frito-Lay, Flickr, and Yahoo! to make it happen.  The campaign was announced by press release on March 15, 2010, and by March 16, 2010, nearly 6,000 images had already been uploaded demonstrating that people like the idea of sharing photos without a lot of encouragement.  It certainly helps that a lot of people already have Flickr accounts, but the point is that people love to share content they’re proud of, and photos are included.

How can you leverage photo or content sharing to market your brand?  It’s something people clearly like to do?  Can you create a campaign around sharing — an activity that your customers are already doing?  It’s quite an opportunity.

Early Adopters Have Significant Influence on Brand Success

Ad_age_yahoo_early_adopters_reportA new white paper from Advertising Age (sponsored by Yahoo!) called Shiny New Thing: What Digital Adopters Want, How to Reach Them, and Why Every Marketer Should Pay Attention reinforces the idea that people who are quick to try new brands, products, and services, are influential both online and offline.

The statistics for early adopters tell us:

  • 62% of early adopters are more likely to upgrade a mobile phone as soon as a new model becomes available.
  • 68% are more likely to have purchased three or more computers in the past two years.
  • 58% are more likely to have purchased three or more flat-screen TV’s in the past two years.

Not only are they quick to try new products and brands in the technology industry, as revealed in the statistics above, but they’re also more likely to talk about those products and brands on the social Web where many early adopters have established followers.  That means the opinions of early adopters can be very influential on a broad scale.

In other words, the opinions of early adopter are no longer confined to the neighborhood or office.  Today, early adopters are vocal about their opinions and they share them freely using the tools of the social Web such as Twitter and Facebook.

As the Advertising Age report reminds us, “early adopters sway the early majority, and those groups can account for half of a new product’s sales.”  Clearly, this is a group that you want to connect with on a positive level, and what better place to find them and build relationships with them than on the social Web?  If early adopters can talk about your brand and products online, thereby influencing a large audience of consumers, then you can use the social Web to influence early adopters.  However, your influence should be indirect.  Strong arming people with sales messages on the social Web is a surefire route to disaster.  Instead, be patient, build relationships, and your efforts should be rewarded with brand advocacy in the future.

The Advertising Age report also reminds us of the three motivating factors that define early adopters, which you can use to help you find early adopters on the social Web and more effectively communicate with them in a language and style they’ll respond to positively:

  • They aren’t afraid to take risks.
  • They enjoy gathering and sharing information.
  • They like to research products and tell other people what to buy.
  • They are status seekers.

While the Advertising Age report focused on technology early adopters, the lessons can apply to most industries.  This is a customer group that bores quickly and is constantly looking for the next great thing.  The worst thing you could do is ignore them.  Instead, you need to deliver great products, earn a solid brand reputation, and build positive relationships with them.

Undercover Employee


Shhhh 1

I haven’t seen the new television show Undercover Boss—but the idea seems almost irresistible.  Who wouldn’t want to see executives slogging around in the trenches?

However, I have done several stints as an undercover employee.  Way back when I wanted to get out of academia and learn about the business world, I found it was easy to get temp jobs because I could type really (really) fast.  So I got to snoop around a dozen or so companies, seeing how they were organized, how people behaved, and so on.  The companies were in different industries, and the work cultures were superficially different.  But what I learned in my adventure was that they all had the same problems.

Fast forward to today.  I’m currently undercover again, this time because I wanted an inside view of a very famous employer brand.  The “undercoverness” is not that no one knows my real identity–it’s that no one has the least interest in who I am.  My role is to get X amount of stuff done in Y amount of time, and enter my hours into the appropriate project slots.  As long as I do that, no one will pay any attention to me.  I am a worker bee.

But I do get to see (or at least hear) how things run in one group.  I won’t reveal my “findings” until I’ve finished the project and departed the company.  For now, I just want to share this observation . . .

Probably nothing would be more help in improving the employer brand than finding out what new  employees actually experience as they go through the hiring process, go through the onboarding process, try to do some work, and try to find their place in the group structure.  How many companies substantively interview new hires and actively utilize feedback?

Come to that:  How many companies provide ongoing support and resources for new hires?  How many managers have the time, skills, or inclination to effectively integrate new employees?  And how many Careers sites talk about the hiring and onboarding processes, or include interviews with newly hired workers as well as career employees?

Last question.  How many corporate recruiters actually know what becomes of candidates after they get hired?

When you think about it—every new employee is “undercover.”  Secretly observing, forming opinions, drawing conclusions.  And those early observations will shape the relationship between employee and employer for a long time.

Check out the  fantastic (seriously) New Hires site at Stanford University for some ideas.  Especially impressive:  a series of Manager Checklists that cover the first days, weeks, and months on the job.


(Thanks to Eric E. Castro for the original “Shhh!” photograph.  It’s been reworked a bit here.)